A Reason To Condescend

Living in one of the worlds largest metropolitan areas often means that we will look down on people who live in more rural areas as being less refined, less cultured, and overall just plain stupid. It's not right, and it's definitely not PC, but it's a bit ingrained in the fabric of the culture in this area. Taken with a grain of salt, I think it's humorous--especially when you realize how easy it is to turn the tables on us "city-folk" and poke fun at our reliance on technology and our ability to to live practically on top of each other and never talk to one another.

But then there are stories like the one below, stories so silly and stupid that you have to laugh. The fact that it happened to a hunter, in Iowa, just adds fuel to the fire for us to condescend. You can check out the direct link to the Google search to find out more if you'd like, but here is the snippet from the local paper:

Dog Steps On Gun, Shoots Man

TAMA, Iowa -- A Tama man was injured when hunting dogs stepped on his gun. Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources said James Harris, 37, was pheasant hunting with a group about three miles north of Grinnell when the accident happened.

Officials said the group had shot a bird and when Harris went to retrieve it, he put his gun on the ground and crossed a fence. As he crossed the fence, hunting dogs stepped on his gun causing it to fire.

Harris was shot in the lower left leg.

He was treated at Grinnell Medical Center and later transferred by helicopter to University Hospitals in Iowa City. His condition has not been released.

The investigation is continuing.

That last line kills me----The investigation is continuing!! My only knowledge of police investigation techniques come from watching movies & TV, so I accept my ignorant limitations, but really!! What the hell else is there to investigate? Motive? Whether or not the dog acted alone? Perhaps one of the other hunters or dogs were in on it? Maybe the dog was framed by a pheasant? Hicks!, ya gotta love them.

Clearification

It has recently come to my attention that I may have been unclear to some people about a major development in my life, so I'd like to address that here in a bit more detail and focus solely on that for most of this post, which won't be long by any means. For the last two months, I've entered myself into a counseling program. The purpose of doing this is to help me come to terms with pent up anger that is tied to many unresolved events and issues from my past and present. If you're wondering, and weren't around when I was growing up during my childhood years, they were pretty bad, and downright disturbing at times. This is a trend that has continued into my adult life.

I've always been one to deal with stress and pressures on my own, with my most common tactic being to bottle up what annoys/angers/frustrates me and try to keep the peace. My success had aways been moderate, but enough to get by. In the last few years as stresses increased and family problems went on the rise, I began to lose the precious hold I'd had and my anger came out in large, mean, hurtful ways, each time while fighting with my wife

The first incident happened about 4 years ago now in which I beat down a door in two massive punches. I'm not talking about busting a door open either, since the door was locked into the frame, I took the entire door, frame and all, completely out of the wall; studs, molding, drywall---pretty much everything. The other occurred recently and it was the catalyst the tipped the scales and made me want to seek help. This one was a rather small scale fight between Meva and I that I completely escalated to extreme levels with some horrible comments and demands that I made while uncontrollably angry, but the worst part for me was that it happened in front of the kids. I vowed then and there to do whatever I needed to insure that never happened again. This is what brought in the counseling.

This has been a positive experience that has helped me to make better and healthier choices for myself. This in turn has had a direct effect in my dealings with others. At times it's been a validating experience, but it has also been challenging, frustrating, and exhausting. It's hard, but I intend to see this through.

In other news, my hand has settled down and the pain I feel is in direct relation to how active I must be in my daily life. I'll know more on Thursday (and have some disgusting Frankensteinesque pictures to share) about whether or not the infection has improved or gone away. It still hurts like crazy to type, which is why I have been silent on blogs and emails; at least compared to my norm. When I get the new cast on Thursday they're going try and shape it better so it interferes less with typing, so we'll see then.

No football talk around here for awhile------DAMN BEARS.

The triplets first semi-real Halloween is in two days, I totally can't wait! I am so stoked.

Word of the Day

I stayed away from the news today so that I could calm down a bit, and that's exactly what happened, I cooled down a bit.

If I could assign a one-word name to today, it would most certainly be pain, followed closely by stupidity! I've been bothered by an enormous amount of pain due to my depression---- which really amounts to aches and pains throughout my body. Beyond that my injured hand has been about an 8 (out of 10) today, my back has been sore, and my head was killing me all day from banging it real hard into a cast iron box which resulted in my chipping a tooth and opening it to a nerve.

Yes, that was all on Thursday. Yes, it caused a great deal of pain. But the worst part was that I was alone with my kids, plus little Finn, so I couldn't allow myself to take the pain meds that I have because they make me sleepy and I don't like to be on anything other than my "A" game when the babies are involved.

So, if you were expecting a call from me earlier or were the one I hung up on when you called today and I fumbled with the phone and then accidentally hung it up and erased all my caller IDs, you now know what was going on.

I'm looking for a much more comfortable day tomorrow though, so wish me luck.

Sullen & Eneverated

I really don't watch the news much any more, be it local or national due mostly to the lack of integrity these days and the awful blurring of news and promotion that attempt to slyly shill a commodity to me. I try to get my news from non-TV news sources like newspapers and Internet sites so I can at least stay somewhat in the loop.

Of late though I'm really getting pissed at a certain type of story that continues to make headlines with increasing frequency, and that's school shootings. Every time we show one on TV and go in depth with detailed accounts of victim suffering and the fear and chaos of the entire event all we serve to do is inspire the next one.

The media is preying on the public with these types of stories that identify the shooter and describe them in such detail that anyone watching who is in a remotely similar state or frame of mind can actually become much more encouraged to copy the actions they see because it will give them their chance to be heard, gain notoriety, and a measure of revenge against those people they feel have wronged them.

In essence, they are creating the news and as a society, we are too stupid, too self-absorbed, and too powerless to organize for the common good and denounce these yellow hucksters and ad revenue vampires for their own irresponsibility. There has to be a degree of accountability reserved for every editor, producer, program director, reporter, or news anchor who cover these stories.

It all just makes me sick.

To think that I would rather hear about the latest non-news story about the current celebrity slutlet over this really says something.

Sunday Sunday

I spent most of today taking care of babies. Sarah and Perrin have a stomach flu and they are very clingy and very pukey. Of course my hand hurt like crazy today, but the kids come first so I had to lay off the pain meds so I could focus on them and be attentive to their needs. I'm just glad I didn't have to do this alone, having Meva with me was amazing. Without her, I'm just trying to clap one-handed. (No Pun Intended)

The writing is still difficult with this cast. I thought it would get better after a few days with it, but that hasn't happened. The typing is a bit easier, but as of now it's causing more pain to actually do this. Hopefully I can get a more functional cast on Tuesday when I go for my first follow up visit to the doctor.

This blogs nature has taken a real somber mood of late and I want to fix that. I still feel the need to write about my counseling issues and feelings, but I don't want to do it all here, so I've created a separate blog for that aptly called Head Games. It's not for the faint hearted or easily offended, but you're welcome to check it out if you'd like. I'll add a permanent link to it on the sideboard tomorrow if I have time.

The Bears actually won today! It was an ugly win, but I'll take it because we definitely need it. I'm afraid of what the team will look like next year because I'm sensing a downward trend that will need some rebuilding soon. Is it too early to begin thinking about the draft?

Last night truly sucked. My brother Lou came up to watch the kids so Meva and I could go to a Halloween party. He was less than 20 minutes from the house (it's an almost 2 hour drive for him) when Sarah started vomiting and I called him to cancel. He came anyway and hung out, which was great, but I didn't feel like leaving him with a cranky, pukey, sick Sarah, so I stayed home and Meva went to the party solo. Sounds like it was a good time for all and I'm sorry I missed it, but Sarah wouldn't let me put her down without some major crying. Thanks again to Louie, Ashley, and Mike for coming down for all that and dealing with my loopy ass from all those pain meds.

Speaking of pain meds, all this typing is killing me, or rather it was killing me. It's all kicking in now so I'm going to sign-off here while I can.

Confluence

I think I've been open about how difficult the past week has been. To make things more difficult has been the pain in my hand and wrist and the cumbersome cast I've been forced to wear. Both of those items have severally inhibited my ability to get much, if any, writing done in any form. I'm trying really hard, but the pain medicine impairs my ability to think clearly, maintain focus, or even stay awake. Quite honestly, I hate this state I'm in and it makes me want to cry because my writing has come almost to a stand still.

The situation with my mother has been life changing in many ways for me and I feel like many areas of my past, present, and future are coming together and they are starting to shape me into a new person. Without a doubt this will anger some people, enlighten some other people, and in a few cases hopefully bring others closer to me. But more importantly I'm hoping for some evolving on my part.

I'm really not a big one on revelations, so forgive me the melodrama as this should be the first time you'll be hearing this, but I've been going to therapy on a weekly basis; trying to deal with issues I've had since I was a kid, and as an adult, and as a way to learn how to control and avoid my anger (If you've ever seen me completely lose it, you'll know why I want this). I've needed this help and I believe I am already using it to my advantage.

I will continue to use this blog as an outlet for my feelings, fears, and hopes. In conjuncture with my therapy, I'm looking for some healthy outcomes. I know that after the weekend I had dealing with the events surrounding my mother's health scare have caused me a great deal of pain and stress and I need to process these feelings and events. I'm seeing all of this as a confluence that needs sorting out so that I can move to the next stage of my life. It's the stage that makes me into the best father, husband, and man of character that I am meant to be.

Sick

I spent the day down and feeling sick. My throat is sore from being on the respirator while I was under sedation for the surgery and I've got a fever to boot! My wonderful friend Colleen came over to watch the kids for me while I just took it easy and pitched in where I could (which wasn't too many places with the awesome job she did). My hand still hurt and continued to swell, but I think it improving.

Meva and I have a real babysitter coming tomorrow to help out so I can take it easy and continue to rest and Heal. But, I'm still feeling like crap, so I'm off to sleep.

The Pain!, The Pain!, The Pain!!

It's been a long day here for me without a doubt. My hand surgery was this morning, and it seems to have been very successful, although we won't know for certain for a few months of observation and use. Right now though, I'm in a huge cast as you can see in the left photo and in some nasty pain. In addition to the regular trauma of the surgery, there is also a great deal of swelling at the moment. I have an appointment to see the doctor early next week to check on my progress and most likely out fit me with a new cast once the swelling has gone down.

The doctor ended up doing a completely different plan for fixing the hand. When he got inside he discovered that the arthritis was extremely severe, the damage was far greater than he had anticipated. As feared, there was no cartilage to cushion between the two bones, which resulted in grinding to the point that the grinding had smoothed the bone to the point of turning it into ivory. This is was a problem because he planned on fusing the two bones together, but they were now too smooth and it would not work as such. The solution then involved grinding both bones to a coarse surface and grafting a portion of another bone removed from my wrist so that the bones could be fused together. We went from fusing two bones to three. The bones are held together by a bunch of wires and screws. This is expected to take eight weeks to heal.

Previously, I was facing a definite loss of mobility in the hand as well as a decrease in strength, both would vary depending on the type of surgery that would be performed. Now that this new procedure was performed I have no idea what is going to go on. I hope to have more definitive answers after my appointment with him.

Today has been a very long and many times strange day. I am so completely not on my A game. I may not even be on my C game. That means there is a lot of slurring of words with long pauses between thoughts and statements and unsteadiness on my feet, which has only been exasperated through the pain medicine that I've had to take which is pretty darn strong, even for me. I think this weekend is going to be the litmus test for how I'm going to do throughout the whole thing.

The one real sad drawback has been my typing proficiency. Quite frankly it sucks butt. It took me an hour to type the first one and a half paragraphs of this, and then my wonderful wife, Mev, stepped in while I dictated. So if I'm slow in getting around to e-mails you know why. Wish me luck and I'll keep in touch.

Kinda Of In The Clear

I got back from the hospital on Monday and my mother was off life support and on her way to recovery. It was a very intense and emotional weekend that I hope I never have to go through again. I'm still emotionally exhausted and beaten from everything and with my surgery to reconstruct my hand tomorrow I will have had a ridiculous week. Writing on the Veil has come to a halt, but I think I might be able to get back on it by Thursday. I think I'll be able to finish it on time, but we'll see.

For now, I need to sleep, but I'd like to thank everyone who sent me some well wishes and kind words. I appreciated the support and at times I needed it. Thanks again to all!

Reflections

Getting straight to the point, my mother is still alive. She's in the ICU and she was given a breathing tube to assist her because she was doing so poorly. As of 1:15am she is in stable condition with acceptable vital signs and under sedation. So all things considered, she is holding her own at the moment.

For those of you that don't know, she has COPD, which basically means she has difficulty breathing. She's been diagnosed with this for a few years now, but unfortunately she hasn't been a good patient. She has ignored orders to stop smoking and she doesn't exercise or take care of herself. I'm not harping about that though, those were her choices, but they've led to her being where she is at what I feel is an early age of 58. She's always been well aware of all this, but continued to live that lifestyle. To say the least, she's stubborn!

My previous post early hinted that I might be mean or bitter and I thankfully wasn't, but I think I know myself enough to know that eventually you will be subject to a rant or more about this topic. Part of this stems from the relationship I've had with my mother. We've never broken off ties or lost touch with each other, but our relationship has been strained for many many years. We aggravate each other, and I'm often accused of being an arrogant ass and know-it-all, and those are some of the better days.

My current frustration with her though is very closely related to tonight's event. I've been politely after her for months now to switch her disability insurance from Arizona to Illinois because I didn't think she looked healthy and in my opinion she needed to have medical checkups while she was here. She fought me tooth and nail the entire time for reasons she'll probably never truthfully tell me, and now she's lying in a bed sedated and being forced to breathe.

To compound matters, she's previously stated she didn't want any types of resuscitation should her health fail, but she never had that put in writing and the medical staff at her hospital followed normal procedures. My sister Teri is flying in tomorrow from Arizona and together we're going to make the hard decisions depending on how she is holding up at that time. Tomorrow will be a tough day for sure.

While this drama was playing out we had some emergencies and problems of our own here at my house. Meva and I aren't too sure exactly what happened, but our dog Gus bit our daughter Sarah in the face and opened up a gash below her left eye that needed stitches! So here I was trying to coordinate and acquire information for everyone and make my way to see my mother in the ER, when Sarah needs to go for a visit herself. With it being a Friday evening, Meva and I figured it would be around a six hour visit as we wait for stitches, which because of my mother couldn't have come at a worse time.

Since Meva is a Physician Assistant, she could actually do this herself, except we're not in the habit of carrying sutures and sterile equipment around with us, even at home. So, Meva drove to her work and got everything we needed for this so that she could do the procedure herself here at home, thus saving us at least 4 hours. Once Meva got back, we put the boys to bed (it was already past their bedtimes anyways) and together we gave Sarah two stitches in her cheek right on our living room floor! Sarah is doing OK, she's a tough little monster. Our dog Gus however is on borrowed time. He's either going to live with Meva's parents or he's going back to the adoption agency we got him from (that was all a part of the adoption agreement).

But wait, there's more!!

Meva has a bad habit of not putting the cordless phones back on the chargers when she's done talking. Because it wasn't stressful enough to just deal with the above on its own merit, the phones were constantly dying and made the entire process more difficult than it needed to be.

Friday was also supposed to be the day Meva's mother came home from the hospital at the end of almost 6 months of treatment for cancer. It took us a few hours (and a Dr. Meva Medicine Woman episode) before we could even call, and then we had to limit the duration of the call to save the juice. It turns out she didn't get discharged yet. Hopefully that will happen this weekend--it sucks having both mothers in the hospital at the same time.

And to put a topper on the evening, as I was bringing Ryan to bed to tuck him in, I was holding him and giving him his normal extra hugs and kisses, he got sick and threw up all over me and himself while Meva was still on her way back with the stitches, leaving me alone to get puked on and deal with the clean up and the other two babies. Let me just tell you that I have been thrown up on quite a bit by the triplets since they all had reflux when they were born, but this was the absolute worst and most foul-smelling vomit yet. It was truly Exorcist quality stuff, so that required a nice unexpected shower for the two of us!!

But, that was my evening and that's how things currently stand with my mother. I 'll fill everyone in on more as I get the info and have the time to do it. Wish me luck!

Adventures In Being A Child

I'm going to probably sound angry, bitter, and mean. It's not my intention, but I am extremely frustrated, angry, and a bit scared. My mother was just taken to the emergency room for problems breathing. I'm currently trying to find out the extent of her condition from the hospital, but I am of course on hold. I'm scared because I've been given some conflicting information regarding how she's doing and I can't trust the accuracy of the reports. I'll keep everyone posted with information as I get it.

Something Funny

I'm still fighting the pain in my hand these days. I don't know if it's actually happening or if it's because I know relief will eventually be here after my surgery next week, but the pain seems to have increased of late. Just about anything I do with my left hand aggravates the joint and makes life difficult. If you know me personally, you know how much I hate taking pills, but I've been popping pills like Bret Favre at a vicodine buffet! It helps with the pain so I can do chores around the house and write, but it sure does make me an emotional dingbat at times.

I was tooling around the web and I came across a YouTube video that shows Will Ferrel actually being a comedic actor and not a personality. What makes it more funny to me was that he was impersonating the legendary Harry Caray. It started out a bit weird with his really good impersonation, but the longer you watch it the funnier it becomes, much better than Cowbell in my opinion. Jeff Goldblum is in the skit and you can see Ferrel totally dominate the scene and Goldblum is barely able to keep from laughing himself at certain points. Anyways, I thought I'd share it, so judge for yourself:

Anger

I've been really pissed off a lot of late. It seems like the last few days I've been spending all my energy and skill just to hold it together and not to blow up. Keeping up with my writing has been very daunting through all of this, and despite some posts that I wish I had back, I think it's still going well. My biggest obstacle there is to get my writing finished before my hand begins to hurt and I need to load up on pain killers. My goal is still to post every day until the end, and until I see otherwise, I believe I can do that.

As for my current state of anger, I am able to keep it at a simmering boil just under the surface, but I have been known to unleash it at times. I don't expect this to happen, but if I shit on anyone, please understand and give me a chance to apologize afterwards.

Well, the Bears pulled off what I would have called a miracle in their win of the hated Packers. I say would have because of what the Cowboys did to win their game last night. Truly unbelievable to score 9 points in 20 seconds. It's a shame that no matter how well the Cowboys play this year, they will still lose in the Superbowl to the AFC representative.

Well, that's it for now. I have a lawn to mow and some more writing to finish.

One Of The Best

Today was one of the absolutely best days I've ever had in my life. That's a simple, true statement that is totally without any hyperbole. We had our fundraiser for Perrin and the Chicago Hydrocephalus Association today at a very nice lake in Arlington Heights that I think was very successful. Out whole family came out to support our little Perrin, we called ourselves Team Fudd, and my Aunt Linda and my cousin Mary came out to support us and participate in the 2 mile walk around the paved lake. It's a tremendous and worthwhile cause.

But that wasn't it. While we were waiting for the event to get started, something finally happened that I've waited almost 40 minutes for; I went for a walk with my daughter Sarah leading the way in a nice playground and park setting. I was the daddy, walking alongside her, sometimes holding her hand, sometimes just letting her walk and run and just enjoying the sheer freedom of being able to move and go just about were ever she wanted to go.

I can't speak for other people, but as I was growing up and thinking about raising kids of my own, one of the images I had was walking in the park for the first time, watching my child walking and learning right beside me, laughing and giggling, running and failing, and loving me with all of her heart. The feelings were totally overwhelming and I don't know how I held back the tears, even now writing about it, it's hard.

I also got to operate a cotton candy machine by myself. God willing I'll never be a carnie, this was my chance to collect blown sugar on a spun piece of cardboard. It was fun and best of all it was free!!!

I also managed to take care of the blog template as I'm sure you've realized. It wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it was going to be and I owe it all to a blog I came across that spoke plainly and offered great examples of how to customize your layouts. The Hackosphere and I recommend it to anyone who isn't real good at html coding. The design isn't perfect, but Hackosphere taught me enough to feel confident to learn how to do more on my own, so thanks Ramani If you're bored with your blogs look, thins maybe the place to help you tweak it!

Well that's it. I took the day off of writing The Veil because my hand was hurting so bad I tore up on the pain meds for it I had finished today's post last night and I know what I'm doing next and I don't anticipate it giving me any problems. So, there you have it!

Changes Under Way

For some strange reason, I can't format the template of this template any more. I've obviously messed with something and for lack of a better term, it's broken. It's sad because I really happened to like this template and I absolutely hate setting up new ones. I'm hoping to have this completed over the weekend, but we'll see.

Yesterday my hand was absolutely killing me. It was probably the worst day I've had with it that I can remember. I really hit the pain meds as a result of that, which meant I was pretty sluggish and a bit of a lump for the most part. I didn't get yesterday's Veil post up and running until maybe a minute before midnight. I really cut it close there, but even with the pain meds it hurt like crazy to even type. Today's not too much better, but I have so much to do that I'm holding out on the pills as long as I can.

The Cubs dropped another game last night, so now they're down 0-2 in the best of 5 series. One more loss and the season is over. I'm pretty sure that's going to happen Saturday unless they pitch Zambrano. We'll see. Either way I don't see them having enough talent to make the World Series. They're close, but just not there. If they can pick up another quality starting pitcher next year and another power hitting outfielder, I think they'll be set. But, we'll have to wait and see especially with the team up for sale.

Back to The Veil, I put a tracker on the site so I can see how many hits I get each day. It's a great one too because it gives me all kinds of other useful and interesting information that I might never had otherwise. It can tell me where the people who are accessing the site are located, when and how long they stayed, how they came to the site, and where they went when they left. It's a sad little "spy" thing I can do. It's harmless, but fun.

The reason I bring that up is because of two rather strange visits I received. In the story I used a local radio news reporter by name, Jackie Swike from Newsradio 780am. It was totally random and meant to add some local color to the tale. Well twice now people have been directed to my site from google searches for her. The strange part is that they have come from New York and Seattle! It led me to google her name and my brand new blog came up as the 5th choice, which is really pretty cool!

Well, I have today's installment to finish and I'd like to knock out as much of the weekend's installments as I can. At some point I'm really going to need to get ahead so I can compensate for my surgery here in the next two weeks.

The Veil

It's been a few days now, but I managed to get my writing project, The Veil, up and running on time. For those of you not in the know, The Veil is a story that is a supernatural thriller set in modern times with a touch of horror. The structure is close to how they do the Fox TV show 24, in that each chapter I write takes place within an increment of one hour, although this will cover more than a 24 hour period.

The story is supposed to take place around Halloween of this year, so starting on October 1st I am making a post each day that chronicles one hour out of the story, from start to finish. I could say more about it, but I think it's easier to just visit and read it.

Meva, the kids, and myself are going to be participating in a 2 mile fund raiser walk this Saturday on October 6th to benefit the Hydrocephalus Association of Chicago. Perrin has his own team and his own website if you'd like to donate and help out. His website is located here. The Walk takes place at 1PM at Lake Arlington Park in Arlington Heights. I'm guessing the event will last about 4 hours or so. We've set a team goal of $500 to try and raise, so if anyone is interested in helping out, no matter how much, that would be great!

Let's see, sports wise this is probably not a good time to be rooting for Chicago teams. The Cubs are already down a game in their best of five series with Arizona and the embarrassment that is my Chicago Bears are playing this Sunday night on national TV against the Packers. I think that's going to be an ugly game, so I'll probably start the weekend off in a grumptastical mood!

For the moment though everything is going well and I don't have any complaints. My little buddy that I watch on Tuesdays and Thursdays is teething and a bit miserable at times, but today he had some real positive experiences of playing with toys and with my kids, and that is so wonderful to see. To be sure, he still cries an awful lot, but if I was in his shoes, so would I.

Early to Bed

Yeah, that's something that absolutely hasn't happened yet for me today. Sleeping has been a real issue for me of late, and I think it's getting into a critical area. Over the last 4 days I think I've gotten about 12 hours sleep. Even when I take some meds to help me relax, my body just seems to fight it off and I still end up awake until the wee hours of the morning---just like now. Pretty soon, the migraines will start up again.

Well, the Bears lost and by all accounts they looked horrible! I was lucky enough to have to work today during the debacle, but I have it recorded so I can hurt myself later and see exactly what happened. I mean, 34 fricken points in the 4th quarter?? Taking away the 14 that weren't scored by the offense, that still means our defense let 20 roll onto the board. I don't care how many starters were injured and not playing, when something like that happens it's time to admit you aren't a top defense any more and you need to reassess your planning and personnel. And then there is the QB position. We benched Rex for throwing too many INT's the previous week (3) and guess how many Greise threw? I know the WR's suck, but this is ridiculous. How much longer until Kyle Orton gets his chance again? I am ready for him right now!

It doesn't look like it got any easier for me in fantasy football. I spent most of my week focused elsewhere and not paying attention to my teams, and I'm paying for it now. In every single league I'm in, I have either been thoroughly beaten up, or I'm about to be. I guess this just needs to be chalked up as one of those weeks and I'm best for moving on.

I'm still not in much of a mood to talk politics or current events, so I'll skip that in favor of what I've watched on TV this past week now that the new TV season has begun.

Old Favorites--- I watched My Name Is Earl and The Office on Thursday and they were both really good starts to the season. They both had some great moments and a few slow spots, but it was a great start for each of them. I thought Earl was a bit better, but The Office had me talking a bit more. ER was a bit of a let down. I still liked it, but I think it missed it's mark as to what it was hoping to achieve, but the show was still good. Heroes was the class of the season to date as far as I have seen. It's just plugging along pulling great plot threads and weaving in some great new characters and developments that I really enjoyed.

New Shows-- I watched Bionic Women and it was borderline bad. The dialogue was weak and the did a poor job of defining many of the characters. The show has some promise, so I'm not ready to write it off yet. Journeyman was a pleasant surprise. I really liked it and the characters were interesting, despite there being a very strong "Quantum Leap" feel to the show. But it did most every thing correctly, so I am looking forward to watching it again later tonight. Same thing goes with Chuck. It was put together well and I think it combined some different genres well to make it stand out from all of the other new shows. The show that really shocked me was Reaper on the CW. I thought it was going to be really bad, and it still might, but I had fun watching it and I think they did a great portrayal of the Devil--he was scary, evil, and vindictive, but he was also entertaining. Moonlight on the other hand was pure torture. It was a great idea, but it was just so poorly written and executed that I don't think this will last long at all.

Anyways, that's it for now. I have a chance to maybe grab 3-4 hours of sleep before the babies get up, so I'm going to go and give it a show. Wish me luck!